I’ve watched episode 5 of Netflix‘s She’s Gotta Have It, titled “#4MyNegusAndMyBishes (ALL WORDS MATTER)” at least ten times. And I’ve loved it each time, but I’d been clueless about how to write about it because my love for the storytelling continues to frustrated by the message the episode is trying to deliver. It’s a weird thing to be wholly in love with an episode of television while thinking everything about that episode is wrong. And it’s so hard to try to explain well why that is so, while still being as generous and loving about the work as you feel. It’s hard. But I’ll try.

I’m was so happy that the audience finally got to Jamie and Nola at their best, and then I was even more pleased that we got to see the troubled life Jamie has with his family. After being dumped by Opal at the end of the last episode, Nola ends her “cleanse” and invites Jamie back into her Loving Bed. Their lunchtime rendezvous is cut short when Jamie’s estranged wife calls to report their son Virgil, about whom Jamie had just been bragging to Nola, and Virgil’s rap group Negus for Love’s viral music video “Da Calleewaggin.” The music video, which was a school assignment to create viral content gone off the rails, is appalling. Virgil is the only black student in the music video and he is wearing whiteface. His non-black counterparts are all wearing black face, and all of the boys are wearing t-shirts with the word “Nigga” printed on the front. Watching Jamie try to handle this crisis is enthralling; he must confront his classist, colorist, but rightly resentful of his infidelities estranged wife about their parenting failures; the pair have to team up to confront the very dense and condescending white headmaster of Virgil’s fancy private school for allowing the video to be posted online; and then Jamie has to start to repair the father-son relationship he’s probably been checked out from since his separation. It’s a powerful story told beautifully.

But I can’t help but be frustrated with the message we’re meant to take away from Jamie and Virgil’s big father son conversation. The love and emotion shared between them feels honest, but the conversation is ultimately a didactic lecture from Jamie to Virgil (and the audience) condemning any colloquial use of the word “nigger” and variations thereof. Jamie’s belief is that the word can never evolve past its horrible origins, and thus has no place in conversation. Of course, Virgil tries to argue that “nigga” is a term of endearment with his generation, regardless of the race of the people using the term. Jamie shoots down that argument by reminding Virgil that Dylan Roof, a young white supremacist who massacred nine black parishioners at the AME Baptist Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, used the word “nigger” hatefully. Watching as a black woman who uses the word “nigga” colloquially among black friends, the lack of nuance here was disappointing. There’s a lot of ground between “Never say Nigger” and “Everyone can say Nigga” and neither Jamie, nor the episode’s writer, Barry Michael Cooper, seemed interested in exploring that ground.

That conversation could have and should have happened; Virgil is certainly capable of engaging with complex subjects. He understands macro scale race matters pretty well for a light skinned black tween of privilege attending a fancy predominately white school, and it’s clear Jamie has done his part in ensuring Virgil knows his history, and the work Jamie has done to be able to provide for his family. Jamie even invokes W.E.B. Dubois’s concept of “Double Consciousness” to give name to the Virgil’s feeling out of place as a black person in white spaces, a feeling Jamie himself shares. So why be extreme and weaponize Dylan Roof’s racist terrorist attack in Charlotte against a teenaged boy’s misguided attempts at using “nigga” to bond with his friends? Why not discuss how in predominately black spaces where, for at least a century, the word “nigga” has been recontextualized and used to mean something less denigrating? After all, Mars is a character on the show that uses the word that way! Actually, remembering that Mars says “Nigga” casually throughout the series almost made me accept Jamie as just one character with his own take on a complex issue and I don’t have to agree with that take. But Jamie’s lecture within the context of the other storylines in this episode suggests that writer Barry Michael Cooper’s thesis is that “All Words Matter” and one can never really empower him or herself by reclaiming or recontextualizing words. And not only is that a thesis with which I strongly disagree, it’s a thesis that seem incongruous with the first 4 episodes of the show.

It’s hard to imagine that a weed smoking, slang-using visual artist like the Nola Darling we know would fully embrace a belief in the rigidity of language, and in her opening monologue she doesn’t. She knows that with all she has on her plate and her decision to reengage with her three lovers, she’s “bugging” but she’s going to say it in a way that empowers her. So, she’s “multitasking.” We’re meant to see her concept of empowered rephrasing as foolish by episode’s end, though. In the first scene after the monologue, she undercuts that concept right away. During her art class, two students start to play “The Dozens” and joke on one another. Nola informs the boys that the term “The Dozens” comes from the practice of selling handicapped or otherwise undesirable slaves in packages of twelve, and she implores the boys to remember that things are “never just a joke.”

But then, Nola sets about on her on misadventures in learning that it’s impossible to redefine words to feel empowered. Nola had assigned her students to each paint album covers that represented them, and, a few of the students chose explicit album covers to paint. A young girl named Reggie paints an homage to an infamous Lil’ Kim poster in which a scantily clad Lil’ Kim squats spread eagle facing the camera lens. Reggie’s painting has Reggie’s face on Lil’ Kim’s body. Nola is encouraging of the piece, calling it “provocative, in the best sense of the word” and Raqueletta Moss isn’t too thrilled with that characterization. In a one on one meeting, Raqueletta reveals that as a child, she had suffered immense sexual abuse and that she was lucky enough to have been adopted by a family that set her on the right path. And Raqueletta Moss made a career in education to ensure that students don’t have to suffer the traumas she did. Raqueletta tells Nola, that she “believes, despite your noble intentions, Ms. Darling, that using art to confront personal dysfunction is a self-fulfilling defect.” But how can that be true Art can be cathartic, and therapeutic, and in my opinion, Raqueletta’s is a narrow view of what painting or presenting traumatic experiences can do to help one’s healing. Nola’s own street art campaign is proof of that!

Which is why it’s so disappointing when Nola sits down with Reggie to discuss Reggie’s “provocative” work. Of course, if a child paints something that explicit, there ought to be some conversation or welfare check, but this conversation between Nola and Reggie isn’t quite that. After complimenting Reggie on her ability to communicate powerfully through her art, Nola tells the girl “you know, the terminology of the words ‘bitch’, ‘slut’, ‘ho’, as cool as it may seem to re-purpose them to empower you, it doesn’t actually increase your currency in the world.” Which seems rather simplistic, especially coming from Nola. Why can’t it increase her currency? Do the words ‘bitch’, ‘slut’, ‘ho’ necessarily decrease one’s value? In whose eyes? Is it under the male gaze that Nola has been trying to cast off for 3 episodes? Perhaps the the male gaze of men like Barry Michael Cooper Nola under his in this episode?. Because why would Nola care about increasing her currency within the context of oppressive sexist structures she’s been openly trying to reject? And why should anyone, especially a self proclaimed polyamorous pansexual in 3 open relationships, reject empowerment through reclamation of words in order to have currency in a world wherein those very words and slurs are what helps police the sexuality of all women?

In any case, Reggie demonstrates that she is well aware that misogynist slurs or provocative representations of herself can cheapen her personal value if she lets it. And she also knows that women Lil’ Kim or Nicki Minaj or Amber Rose are just selling sex because she’s aware “being a hoe can be a great business.” But not for Reggie. That doesn’t work for her. Nola’s anxiety is assauged, but not mine. Because, as much agency as the writing tries to give Nicki Minaj and Amber Rose, there is a Madonna-Whore dichotomy being presented; women like Nicki Minaj and Amber Rose are hoes—even if just for business—while Nola and Reggie are not. And we know, Nola’s stated belief that reclamation of such terms is not possible and we have Reggie’s affirmation that “hoe” business is definitely not for her. This conversation is meant to be prescriptive. The audience is meant to understand that hoe business is an unsavory one, especially when we cut right to Shamekka who has just gotten very dangerous black market butt enhancements to resemble Nicki Minaj and improve business at her sex worker job. This is where I have the biggest gripe with this episode (that I love, I swear). There isn’t any acknowledgement that Nola’s take on slur reclamation is colored by her own personal trauma? It seems important to note that Nola’s conversation with Reggie was about words that had been used to victimize Nola, and to revictimize her by using those slurs to vandalize her triumphant street art. Nola has been beaten down. When she advises Reggie, she must be speaking with the heart of a weary woman.

I still loved the episode, I promise. I loved seeing Reggie and Nola one on one, I love Raqueletta Moss monologuing her trauma and celebrating her hero Shirley Chisholm. I loved Jamie and Virgil on the stoop. I loved Jamie and Nola in bed. I loved episode five. I promise I did.

Rae Sanni is a comedian and writer from Brooklyn, NY who has been bringing her unique perspective on everything from pop culture to race and gender relations to audiences all over. Rae is a staff writer on Comedy Central’s The President Show and cohosts the podcast Misandry with Marcia and Rae. You can find Rae on Twitter @Raesanni.